So if dandelions get started in a lawn they will soon kill out the grass, and then there will be a dandelion lawn instead of a grass lawn!
A dandelion lawn is very beautiful for a little while in the early summer. Sometimes it looks like a carpet of gold, the yellow flowers are so thick and fine. But when they are done blossoming the lawn is a sorry looking sight.
Dandelions do not trouble the hay fields, for where the grass is allowed to grow tall it soon smothers them.
Boys are often hired to dig dandelion roots out of lawns, and near large cities poor women may often be seen digging them out for the sake of the young leaves which, when they first come up in the spring, make very good “greens.” These people sell them or eat them instead of spinach. Tender young dandelion leaves are very good indeed, and some people like them better than spinach.
Dandelion plants have a wise way of protecting their seed children until the time for flight.
The flower buds come out of the center of the leaf rosette, close to the ground. They have very short stems and seem to sit right on the rosette.
1. A cluster of flowers.
2. One flower (magnified).
There are a great many flowers in one dandelion head. Each little yellow part of the dandelion flower head is a separate blossom, and each separate blossom has one seed case with a seed inside growing to the bottom of it.